My favourite love story with Sarah Jolicoeur

This week’s blog is from Sarah Jolicoeur.  Sarah is just one of the many beautiful Godly women who make Hills church such an amazing community.  This week our monthly women’s prayer group is meeting at the church at 10 so I asked Sarah (our prayer group leader),  if she could be my guest blogger for the week. You are going to love this:   

Song Of Solomon 4:12-16

The Lover to His Beloved:

You are a garden locked up, my sister, my bride;

you are a spring enclosed, a sealed fountain.

Your plants are an orchard of pomegranates with choice fruits:

henna with nard, nard and saffron; calamus and cinnamon with every kind of incense tree, with myrrh and aloes and all the finest spices.  

You are a garden fountain, a well of flowing water streaming down from Lebanon.

The Beloved to Her Lover:

Awake, O north wind; come, O south wind!

Blow on my garden that its fragrance may spread abroad.

May my lover come into his garden and taste its choice fruits!

 

I loved Jenny’s blog last week on good stories, I too love a good story and my favourite kinds are, dare I say it, love stories! One of my favourite love stories is the Song of Solomon. As a new Christian I was amazed at the intensity of love, the words, the passion found in this book. It certainly made me view God differently & blew away so many false impressions. God certainly isn’t stuffy & distant! I didn’t necessarily understand it all, & some parts I still don’t! But oh the language of love spoke deep into my heart.

Still today it amazes me how much Jesus loves us, his people, His Church, His Bride, I say like David ‘Such knowledge is too wonderful for me, too lofty for me to attain’ Psalm 139

Jesus (or the lover) in the above scripture describes His bride as a garden locked up, a sealed fountain full of delicious fruit, spices & fragrances. For the garden to be closed or locked means that it is for “His” use only. I love this!  It challenges me but also stirs me.  Is the garden of my heart giving God first place? Am I someone who puts God first in each area of my life? Hhhhmmm!

This year some our Nurture groups touched on spiritual gifts as part of their study. I love that God has placed gifts {fruits, spices, fragrances} in each one of us, gifts to build the body, to Glorify God and to reveal Jesus. So often though, we look around us and enlarge and glorify the people that we view as having the best gifts! There have been times in my life, where I’ve so desired the big gifts the ‘be-seen’ gifts like the gift of healing or prophesy only later to have my heart searched and there revealed is vanity, pride and selfishness! Pretty ugly hey! Instead of being locked into God we can be locked into ourselves and so not able to see the beauty of the gift that God has given us because it’s supposedly not as good as someone else’s, we jealously bury our gifts……

So often we don’t see as God sees but he is perfect in his distribution.

I love looking around our church and seeing all the diversity, beauty and uniqueness that Hills woman bring to the table. There are indeed so many wonderful fragrances, spices and  fruits in operation. I love the wisdom from those that are older and the vibrancy from those that are young and the innocence, joy and depth from those that are younger still. Some have passion that inspires others a deep stillness that brings peace & when we all come together in unity we shine.

I love the beloved’s response above. ‘Awake O North wind, come O south wind blow on my garden that its fragrance may spread abroad….’ Some winds are gentle, balmy breezes that feel lovely others are uncomfortable, strong gales that blow with gusto. She calls on both, she’s open to the Holy Spirit & asks him to come in to search her heart, to refine her so as to enable the beauty & the fragrance to spread out & bring glory to her lover …..

Oh may He, Jesus, be revealed & glorified more & more Amen!!